Dazed and doused in a mildew-like substance shrouded in blackness, a putrid stench emanated through the air, it was analogous to a mixture of decrepit wood saturated by floodwaters and unwashed gym apparel. He contemplated how long he had been bound to the floorboards in this dark abyss. He vaguely recalled collapsing unceremoniously in a heap on the mildew drenched floors, due to erratic twinges of electrifying pain emanating bilaterally down his legs. Evidently, his sole physiotherapy session hadn’t ameliorated his acute on chronic disc injury. However, it remained incomprehensible why he was still flailing around incapacitated in a barren abyss. Sleep deprivation coupled with erratic neurological pain, indubitably wreaks havoc on short-term memory.
“You’re still here boy? I would have thought you would have crawled back to your box by now?” cackled an uncanny voice.
Billy abruptly pivoted his head towards the menacing interrogation. Suddenly, an electrifying pain emanated from his iliac crest to his right knee. He narrowed his gaze to the approaching, object. It was a feeble, elderly women with a pronounced Dowager’s hump ambling with a vintage cane. Its gleaming bronzed tinge faintly illuminated the dark vortex.
“I lost my balance due to this unrelenting disc injury which flared up a few days ago,” Billy stammered.
“Oh Really? I believe you have been lying like a decrepit log obstructing the fire escape for nearly a day now,” she retorted.
Billy suddenly reverted to a kneeling posture, in abject mortification of his inexcusable state. The pain now reverberated from his mid-spine to his bilateral knees which seemed incapable of supporting his unstable weight. His legs really did have a mind of their own.
“You look like my disheveled dog just before he succumbed to a kidney infection. After ten years, most dogs are no longer immune to all the bacteria they so readily ingest. As his eyesight diminished, Bowser became bizarrely attracted to lawn scraps and the occasional recycling bin,” she sneered.
Billy dejectedly lowered his head and whimpered in pain. Incredulously, he had been a lauded financial analyst for a premier banking firm just over a week ago. Now he was relegated to the status of a rabid animal surviving in the slums of New York City. The air was oppressively laden with a mixture of bodily fluids and rotting cardboard boxes. He suddenly recoiled at noting a squishy, revolting substance which he had erroneously sunk his left hand into.
“Were you indulging in too many Bud lights prior to your haphazard excursion Billy?”
“No, not at all. I actually disposed all of my alcohol in the garbage last week. I couldn’t justify it as a coping mechanism since my unforeseen exodus from JC Stanley. The vomit is likely collateral damage from being overwhelmed with so much neurological pain,” he adamantly declared.
“Indeed, since I suffered several vertebral fractures in my lumbar spine in 1999, I have been susceptible to unpredictable bouts of back pain. It accounts for why I’ve also shrunk five inches over the years. Age is an inescapable burden,” she asserted.
“Yes, I’m increasingly aware of this plight. Although, I’m not even forty, I feel as if I’m confined to the body of a seventy-five-year-old man relegated to a long-term care facility.”
“My ex-husband died in one of those facilities. However, he didn’t make seventy-five. He succumbed to Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome at only fifty years of age. Undeniably, I couldn’t care for him in our four-bedroom home in New Orleans. So, I resigned to the fact we would have to part ways and I transferred him to a facility for the disabled.”
“How gracious of you to be so considerate of his incompetent state,” Billy reluctantly remarked.
“Indeed, he was always more in love with his gin collection than even his own children. It was a very pathetic, pathological dependency. Ultimately, his diet in Meadow Gardens Facility primarily consisted of pureed peas, mashed carrots and a variety of dairy-free supplements. I’m glad I never fed him because he would dribble all his food down his chin and bib like a baby”
“Did you visit him often?”
“Initially, I visited him on a bi-weekly basis. However, after six months his cognitive state quickly deteriorated. He couldn’t even distinguish me from the cleaning lady. He would babble incoherent garbage, which was too painful for me to witness. So, for my own peace of mind, I moved to Boulder Colorado. Several months after my move, I was informed that he had died from an ischemic stroke. Unbeknownst to the medical staff, he also had 75% of his lefty pulmonary artery and inferior vena cava blocked. It’s odd how the doctors never ascertained he had heart disease, despite their innumerable visits to his room for twelve months.”
“Did you investigate the reason for this negligence?”
“Yes, I sued our health care insurance provider Green Shield as well as Meadow Gardens medical staff. The lawsuit consumed twenty-eight months of my time. Fortunately, my lawyers graduated from Georgia Tech, so I won 1.2 million in damages in addition to the cost of my legal fees,” she triumphantly declared.
“That seems like a nominal sum for the loss of your husband at 50 years old?” Billy retorted.
“Unfortunately, you’re right. It’s impossible to account for the loss of life. Also, the settlement didn’t exactly account for the disappearance of his platinum Olympia watch, two rhinestone encrusted platinum wedding bands and modest collection of renaissance art,” she sneered, haphazardly waving her cane.
Upon further inspection, now that his eyes had adjusted to the absence of light, he determined that the cane in fact was not a vintage bronze, but a metallic aluminium. It was a stock-standard single-point stick from CVS Pharmacy. The garish rubber ends resembling elementary school erasures gave it away.
“Undoubtedly, those were invaluable assets that were stolen by petty, mercenary thieves. Some long-term care facilities are rife with self-serving opportunists,” he chided.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Self-Determinism in Physiology, Psychology and Philosophy to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.